Foundations
by inthecompanyoflove
Summary: Takes place after 2x07 "The Substitute". When Finn comes to Emma for relationship advice, she struggles with objectivity.
1. Chapter 1

"It didn't mean anything."

Emma blinked. _Stay focused_, she told herself, tapping her fingertips against each other. _This is your job. Your student. This is Finn Hudson talking to you about an issue with his girlfriend. This is their relationship. This is not Will. _

"How exactly did this come up, Finn?" _Stay calm. Stay focused._

The teenager sighed. "You see, Miss P, Rachel and I were making out in her room. It was getting pretty heavy and she pulled away." Finn shrugged. "So I figured she wanted to stop, you know, so I waited for her to say something. When she did..." He sighed and looked at his lap, breaking eye contact. "She told me she never actually slept with Jesse, her ex, and only wanted me to think that so I would be jealous. And well... I didn't say anything. I just hugged her and she said she was happy we'd have our first time together. And... I didn't say anything."

_Stay calm. Stay focused. _Emma stared at Finn's mass of brown hair and willed her mind not to drift. How many times had Will sat in that very chair, looking for advice? How to fix his relationship with Terri, how to fix kids with the Glee Club... but never on how to fix them. They never sat across from one another, hands to themselves, far away from heated moments, to talk about their feelings. Instead, they pushed each other away, bit at each other's knuckles before shoving their fists into their pockets. The easy communication that came with their close friendship faded like summer's long days into the school year's start. Emma sighed.

"How do you feel about holding that information back, Finn?" _Good. Keep calling him Finn. That's his name - he isn't Will. Finn, Finn, Finn._

Finn glanced up and gave her one of his famous half-smiles. "I feel pretty crummy, Miss P. It's like I can't look at her without feeling guilty. I know she deserves to know I slept with someone else, but I don't think she'll forgive me for it. I mean, I lied to her, and that's pretty bad. At least when I thought she slept with Jesse, she was upfront about it. But I've been hiding this for months..." His voice trailed off and he glanced out the window. Emma followed his glance and watched the rain smack the glass, blurring the outside world.

"Are you afraid of losing her, Finn?"

"Yes." Finn's head snapped back and his answer was immediate. Emma looked into his brown eyes and saw sincerity and pain. "It's taken us a long time to get here and I don't know what I'd do if..." Eyes on his lap again and silence.

_Stay collect, Emma. Finn needs your help right now. Don't pretend he's Will. Don't do what you want Will to do for you. Don't be selfish_. "Finn," she started, her voice very soft, "If you don't tell her, do you think your relationship will still be good? Do you think you can still move forward?"

He shook his head, but didn't look up. "No... Probably not. Which sucks."

Emma nodded empathetically, her eyes still on his hair. She blinked and saw Will's curls, imagined her fingers tangled in them; something she'd wanted for so long but never gotten up the courage to do. She shook her head: time for daydreams later. "Finn, this is a decision only you can make for yourself. But sometimes we become so convinced that things can stay the way they were - good and happy - that when obstacles come up, we run away from them, because we're afraid facing them will ruin what we already have." She paused and waited for his reaction.

"Yeah?" He looked up at her and Emma had to swallow her emotions: his feelings, so evident in his boyish face, overwhelmed her. _Oh, Will..._

She nodded. "Yeah.. So sometimes we have to decide what's more important: trying to keep things as they were, even if we know they've already changed, or testing the strength of our foundations and seeing if they can withstand the changes." _Stay calm, Emma, stay calm._

Finn was quiet for almost a full minute. Emma opened her mouth to ask a follow-up question when he spoke. "It just... it didn't mean anything, Miss P. I thought she had moved on, you know? Found someone who made her happier, made her a better person than when I was around. I was lonely," he glanced at the window again and Emma swore she caught a glint of something in his eyes. "I was just lonely... and I don't want to be lonely again."

"Talk to her, Finn. This sounds very painful for you, holding it all in." _Be objective Emma, be objective! "_Maybe write it out in a letter first?"

Finn nodded, the glint suddenly gone. "Yeah, that's a good idea." He paused and gave her another winning half-smile. "Or maybe I'll sing it. I'm not too great with words on my own."

As he left, Emma stared out the window and sighed. Had she let her emotions cloud her work? Let things get too personal? She didn't want to be that person; she loved her job, and even though Will saw them as his kids, she saw them as hers, in her own little way. Emma, more than anyone else she knew, knew all too well the discomfort and anxiety of keeping things deep inside, in the crooks of her organs and the soft curves of her muscles. It burned and stung, and after long enough, when she finally let the air get to it, it hurt too badly to keep it open for long. So she kept it all closed in, stiched with careful, even lines, a rythmic pattern she knew like the palm lines in her hands. She sighed again, her small shoulders hunching forward. Emma, you have got to snap out of this. She began to turn to her pamphlets, Figgans got a new order sent in the other day, and she had to organize them again, when she heard a few strings of music come in over the loudspeaker.

"What the...?"


	2. Chapter 2

Emma had a Lysol wipe in hand as she closed her office door. She straightened her skirt and shoulders and released a deep breath. _Sue._ She remembered the Madonna fiasco well and her cheeks flushed with embarrassment. _Take control over your body, Emma. Take control over your life._

Her heels clicked against the dingy floor - _no time to stop, no time to stop _- and her ears strained for music coming from any other room. She paused infront of the math wing - nothing. Next, the home economics kitchen - she flinched. The place was covered in what looked like brownie batter. She shivered._ Focus, Emma. No music, no wasting time._

_Why would anyone do this?_ Figgans would be home already - in fact, most everyone would be home already. The school day had long ended and Finn slipped in to talk to her during a break in Glee practice. As she turned the corner to Figgans' office, her ears perked up: music! She shut her eyes and counted backwards from ten. _Stay in control, stay focused. Do your job._

Somewhere around -5 she realized the music stopped playing. Her eyes popped open. How curious. Taking two quiet - or as quiet as her heels would allow - steps forward she braced herself for a confrontation - breaking and entering into an administrator's office, misusing school proper-

"Oh, Finn!"

Emma jumped. _Finn?_ She leaned her face around the corner and stared. Rachel was in Finn's arms, her thin limbs wrapped around his neck and waist, her glossy brown hair covering their faces. Emma released a deep breath. Music. Finn. Rachel. She smiled. He took her advice into his own hands...

"Oh, Finn! This is the most romantic thing you've ever done! It was a little hard to hear the words over the guitar - which you're so good at, by the way, has Noah been teaching you? - but it was absolutely stupendous!" Rachel chattered on and Emma watched Finn's expression - a little confused, but mostly relieved - and bite back a few tears of her own. Finn and Noah were friends again? She hadn't known. In a small way, she felt like her words time meant something, made a real, if tiny, impact on these kids. Her kids.

The walk back to her office was quiet. She felt happy, but tired. She looked at her shoes - yellow heels, her favorite pair - and thought about why they were her favorite. She remembered the first conversation she and Will had had outside of McKinley. The parking lot - so not far outside, sure, but outside none the less. She'd been distracted that September afternoon; she'd sworn she'd seen Ken Tanaka creeping a few students behind her, and stepped in it, figuratively and, painfully, literally. Gum. She got herself to the bench - something she was proud of herself for, no matter how crazy everyone else thought she was - but it wasn't until he stopped to help her that she felt okay. Not calm, but calmer. Not safe, but safer. In the months following, she'd glorified his actions - he_ saved _her, made her feel like_ no one _else had. It was true, in a way, but people don't belong on pedestals, which she learned, slowly. Everyone needs a foundation and you can't put that on another person's shoulders, no matter how smooth and chiseled they were...

If her thoughts weren't in her head, her eyes, a little clearer, her hearing a little sharper, she would have seen Will appear at the end of the hallway, his sweater vest a little rumpled from the weight of his guitar case over his shoulder. Would have seen his smile, his quick survey of his clothes, glance at his hands and desperate glance around for - what? hand sanitizer? Figgans cut that from the budget months ago, and then seen his eyes grow wide, a little panicked, his hand outreached -

But she didn't. She didn't see Will or anything else, including the wad of bright pink chewing gum on the floor in front of her, until she slipped forward and felt her body go cold. What the...?


	3. Chapter 3

Everything was dark. One hundred, ninety-nine, ninety-eight... Imagine the numbers, Emma, what color are they? Are they bold? How big? Let them take over your brain. Emma, can you open your eyes? No, the numbers will go away. Ninety-seven, ninety-six, ninety-five... Sharp tingles in her fingertips - were those the numbers climbing into her palms? Were they clean - no, don't think about clean. Emma, Emma, Emma...

"Emma?"

She was cold. Her eyelids felt thick and she wondered what was coating them - puss? Fungus? She shivered. Her stomach was icy. Water. Soap. Shower. Her mouth hurt. Were her lips peeling off? Don't drink the disinfectant, Emma, don't do that. Even Lysol can't purify your insides.

"Emma, I'm going to lift you, okay?"

She was floating. She remembered being sixteen, in a sky blue dress, shaking in her first pair of heels. It was Homecoming and she had a date. He was beautiful, tall, with broad shoulders and a slim torso, and he wanted her. Loved her. Their first kiss - his lips against her forehead, chaste, patient - the day he invited her to the biggest dance of their Junior year. _This is what love is_, she thought, smiling and spacing out during her classes for the two weeks until the dance.

"Em, can you hear me? You're scaring me... I can't find your purse. I don't want to scare you, but I can't get us into your car. We're going to take mine, okay? Em?"

She stood in the doorway, big brown eyes bright like melted milk chocolate, and watched him approach. His figure cleared and she frowned - the girl next to him, who was that? His friend, just a friend, she told herself. She felt her feet get slippery in her shoes - oh no, not sweat, please don't be sweat - and her stomach twisted. She didn't have very many friends, but she couldn't imagine holding hands like tha-

"Em, we're almost at my apartment, okay? I'm making a judgment call right now and I'm pretty freaked but I want you to be okay. I couldn't just leave you there like that and. I just didn't want you to take you to the hospital. I can fix this, okay? I just can."

It was in her hair. Spit and gum wrapped in her long red locks, gluing the soft curls together. She tried not to scream. She saw him, with the girl, their hands clasped and their mouths, open, laughing, and she tried not to scream. Why would someone - why would anyone - and everything was cold and dark and somewhere inside her, she was crying.

"Em? Em? Baby, you're crying. Em, can you hear me?"

Will. _Will_. Where were the numbers? She was warm and her eyelids felt lighter. She blinked and saw his face, white and twisted, above hers. "Will?"

"Em!" He smiled a little. "You're awake... You've been crying. I - I'm so sorry, I didn't know what to do. You were in the hallway, passed out, and I just didn't know what to do..."

She kept blinking. Hallway? Passed out? She felt her face and neck get red. It couldn't be.. How humiliating...

Will kept talking. "I don't know what it was, exactly, but there was gum stuck to your shoe and I just... I'm so sorry, Em. I didn't know what to do...How are you feeling?"

She stared. "Where are we?"

"My apartment," he said sheepishly, glancing around. I cleaned up the best I could... then I heard you crying and I had to come back over... I know you like your space, but I couldn't ignore it." He paused but when she kept staring, emotionless, he whispered, "I got your favorite blanket out... It hasn't been used since the last time you were here, so I figure it's pretty clean..."

Emma looked around. His apartment looked pretty much the same. She was on the same couch she had been on during their previous dates - watching movies with his arm around her shoulder, her face on his chest. She looked down - the blanket, a pale yellow, was in fact the one he'd wrapped her in when she was cold. She smiled, a little.

"Thank you."

"It's no problem, Em... I'm so sorry I couldn't do more. Do you mind... I mean, if you want to talk about things, I'm right here... Just tell me what I can do to make you feel comfortable, okay?"

She nodded. "Thank you, Will, so much... I... Did anyone else see me, in the hallway?" She could feel her skin on fire. Had she really let things get that bad? She could barely remember the trigger.

He shook his head. "No, just me... I tried to wake you up, at first, but I couldn't so I carried you to your office but I couldn't find your purse so I put you in my car and drove us back here. I hope I did the right thing."

She nodded, tracing her fingertips around the tearstains on her face. "You did..." she placed her face in her palms and started to count backwards from one hundred.

"Em?"

"I just... I'm so embarrassed. I've been trying so hard lately, Will, and I can't believe that happened..."

"It's okay, Em, it's not your fault... Sometimes things get away from us and it becomes too much to handle alone. There's no shame in needing a little help." He put his hand on the couch, not touching her, but close enough she felt the pressure indent.

She moved her hands from her face and smiled, a little. "Thank you," she whispered.

"No worries, Em. I have tea ready, if you're thirsty." She nodded and he walked away. She shut her eyes and tried to remember what had happened, what had triggered such a horrible, humiliating episode. She shivered.

Shutting her eyes she leaned back on the couch. Soft pillows welcomed her and she breathed out, counting the numbers again. She smelled tea - orange spice - and felt a little safer. Not healed, not whole, not perfect - but better than alone. Cracks in the foundation can't be smoothed over with ease, no matter how gentle and considerate the hands, but the foundation can always use a little extra support, a little extra care when things get too shaky.

Her eyelids were heavy_. Two minutes_, she told herself, settling deeper into the blanket. The soft hum of Will's footsteps comforted her into a light sleep until she felt pressure on the couch and his lips, so light, so brief, cross her forehead, and allowed herself a small smile. _This is what love is_, she thought.

I'm not sure how I feel about this chapter. Is anyone interested in an epilogue? I really want to address some of their more serious issues but it felt like too much to cram it all into this chapter. Input?


End file.
